Two dozen money experts answered more than 1,000 calls Thursday evening as part of the Certified Financial Planning Association of Dallas/Fort Worth's annual "Ask a CFP" hotline event.

The event, which allows anyone to access free financial advice, launched in 2001 at TheDallas Morning News. The News' late personal finance writer, Pamela Yip, pitched the idea as a way of serving readers in a different format from her columns and articles.

Tom Murphy (center), with Murphy & Sylvest, made sure fellow certified financial planners were ready before they started The Dallas Morning News' annual financial call-in on Thursday at the offices of KXAS-TV (NBC5).

"She really felt strongly about it," Thomas E. Murphy, media relations chairman of the Financial Planning Association of Dallas/Fort Worth and one of the call-in's major organizers, told The News recently. "She was a bigger advocate for this than we were."

Almost two decades later, the event scaled up: Thursday, for the first time, TheNews worked with its media partner, KXAS-TV (NBC5) to host the call-in at the TV station's newsroom, and both outlets featured personal finance coverage in the days leading up to the event.

This year's "Ask a CFP" event also included a hotline for Spanish speakers, which was featured on NBC5's sister station, Telemundo 39, and the staff of TheNews' Spanish-language newspaper, Al Dia.

Financial planners who volunteered their time — from 4 to 7 p.m. — to staff the phone lines said they fielded questions that ran the gamut of money situations: from millionaires asking for a second opinion about how to structure their savings to people who fell behind on debt payments and sought advice for rebuilding their credit.

The answer to the latter? Not surprisingly, there are no shortcuts — just paying your bills on time.

Planners also dispensed advice about the best way to grow their savings without taking on much more risk. Brandon J. Gibson told one caller that investing in a conservative mutual fund would be a good bet.

Others asked about retirement saving options for small business owners. Planners suggested they look into a SEP-IRA.

Finally, planners answered questions about teaching their kids about money. Planner Elizabeth Grahsl said it depends — but it's never too early to start modeling good behavior.